UB student’s club helps members be their best selves—inside and out

By David J. Hill

You don’t need to spend $30 a month for a gym membership,
or set up a Bowflex in your spare room. All it takes to get fit is
the equipment you can find at almost any outdoor park. And the
encouragement of your peers.

That’s the philosophy behind a new fitness club, called UB
BarbarianZ, created by student Elijah Tyson. The club’s
workouts feature a style of exercise known as bodyweight fitness,
which emphasizes calisthenics—used in combination with bars,
poles and other typical equipment you might find outside—over
traditional free weights. “These workouts are
versatile,” says Tyson, who will be a senior this fall
majoring in business with a minor in nutrition. “Everything
we use, you can find outdoors.”

Tyson turned to bodyweight fitness as a freshman. He had been
using free weights, but didn’t like the wear and tear on his
body, so he began integrating calisthenics into his regimen. A
typical Tyson workout is split into two portions: full
body—which includes pullups, diamond pushups, squats, a
Russian twist and jumping lunges—and what’s called
front-lever strength-progression exercises, such as leg lifts, side
plank raises, back extensions and planks. “Every day
I’m trying to do new things with my body,” he says.

A certified personal trainer, Tyson formed the club last fall,
taking inspiration from the urban bodyweight fitness groups that
proliferate in his hometown of Copiague, N.Y., on Long
Island—not just in terms of the workout, but also the ethos
surrounding it. “All these street fitness crews promote
self-improvement values and community involvement,” he says.
“That was the culture I wanted to create with my
club.”

So he developed a set of eight guiding principles, or
laws—the “BarbarianZ Scripture”—that club
members must abide by. Each law is designed to complement the
workout and a real-life situation. Examples include “No
shortcuts to success” and “Bye, haters.” As Tyson
explains, his club does not tolerate discriminators of any kind.
“We kick them out,” he says.

Each workout begins with Tyson reciting one of the laws and
explaining how it will correlate to that session. At the end, he
says a few words about how the law applies to a real-world
situation.

That capital Z at the end of the club’s name refers to
what Tyson calls the “Law of Z.” “It’s the
last letter in the alphabet, and every letter before that
represents an obstacle or challenge you will go through in life
when you’re trying to accomplish something big,” he
explains. “When you get to Z, you’ve done
it.”

While the workouts can seem intimidating at first, club members
are there to help. “Every exercise we do is acclimated to a
person’s fitness goals,” says Tyson, whose
postgraduation plans include opening his own gym and starting a
nonprofit for youth. “We’re not going to make you feel
like you’re not good enough.”